Week 3 - Tuesday: Completed Entrance Hall

I have finally completed the modeling for the entrance hall area. I have created a render in 3DS Max and hidden some of the walls so you can see inside better:

A render of my entrance hall interior.

The next phase will be to UV map some of the more complicated features and ensure that everything goes into the engine correctly.

With the entrance hall area I have tried to conform to the requirements of Unreal Engine 4. As such when I bring this geometry into the engine, I will need to make sure that the elements are brought in efficiently. To illustrate what I mean, I have taken the time to break down this area into how I want to bring the assets into the engine. By doing this I hope to ensure that my assets are fit for purpose within Unreal Engine, making it easier for me to work with all of the 3D elements that I will be using.

A breakdown I created to help me bring my assets into Unreal Engine.

I have categorised my assets into three types:

• Individual assets: These are the models that will come into the engine as separate entities. For example I am keeping the bannister posts individual assets because it's easier to position them without error in 3DS Max first.
• Repeated assets: These are models that I can easily repeat in Unreal Engine without error. I will only import one of this type and then position it repeatedly in the engine.
• Single asset: This represents a complex set of models that I will be importing into the engine as a single asset for easy placement.

Because of the complex shape of this room, I haven't used modularity with some of the assets. Making each bannister post an individual asset for example is highly problematic as I have what could be just a single asset being imported into the engine multiple times. The awkward layout of the entrance hall has made it quite difficult to use modularity in this case and whilst I acknowledge this is inefficient, I don't want to risk having any noticeable gaps in the balcony railings. Other assets are more forgiving however and I think I can position these in the engine without any problems.

The majority of the surfaces in the entrance hall are wooden, so I already have my material instance setup to make the texturing process quick. The next task will be to ensure that everything is imported into the engine correctly so that I can finish the first room of my environment.